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Topic: militarized police state (Read 22673 times)

this relates to the gun thread, but is not the gun thread per se. Lately I've become increasingly concerned by the lattitude police have to breach your rights in addition to their increased militarization. Here are some relevant articles.

So, second amendment fans, is this not the sort of thing you say the second amendment is supposed to be for? Is this not the tyranny all you John Waynes are supposed to be stopping with your personal aresnals? If not, then I have no idea what is. If so, then get to it or shut up forever about it.

As one article I linked points out, we do not even have the right to defend ourselves from illegal entries of our homes by cops.

Frankly, I don't see guns ending this. More guns is just going to escalate the problem and justify their even more draconian measures. Shooting a few cops or politicians you don't like has to be followed by something that replaces them with something better. Just shooting them isn't better. And frankly, 2nd amendment vigilantism isn't better either.

^ I spend a lot of time watching that in action on youtube. In the US it is 100% legal to video record any public employee in public doing their job. That includes cops. They may not take your camera or erase the data. However, many cops either don't know that, have not been trained for it, or know it and try to intimidate people into stopping anyway.

There have been some sketchy attempts to invoke wire tap laws to say you may not record their voices, but that has mainly failed in court. Also, you many not get in the way of police action or obstruct them to do the recording. They use this excuse a lot. Standing across the street videoing them while they beat a brother down? You may be accused of obstructing.

I'm with you all the way on this, screwtape. While I've no doubt that there are still cops out there that want to do the right thing and who make an effort to police in acceptable ways, it appears that belligerence and various rights violations are on the upswing in many areas and, as trends go, this one sucks. Toss in standard levels of ineptness, actual incompetence, various prejudices, etc. and when combined with an constant exhibition of militarism, and things go downhill fast.

While the reasons for this change are multitudinous, one of the contributing factors is the fact that police departments around the country keep getting free military surplus hardware to help them fend off terrorism and/or anything the fucking feel like fending off. Add to that the incentive to find drug dealers (and if need be, frame a few folks) because the departments get to keep seized property, and the results will surely qualify as recipes for disaster.

I haven't checked the links yet, but I've run across a variety of articles and videos, etc. in recent times on the same subject, and just like every pressing matter in our society (crumbling infrastructure, economic imbalances, global warming, etc), it is a crisis already, with more of the same promised on a daily basis. And of course more guns won't help. That just incentivizes the bad ones to be badder.

The only solution may be to get rid of all possible sources of trouble. Which of course means getting rid of all humans. Barring that, we may just have to agree to not get along.

Only then did masked figures with guns storm the crowd, shouting, “Get on the fucking ground! Get down, get down!” ... Some forty Detroit police officers dressed in commando gear ordered the gallery attendees to line up on their knees, then took their car keys and confiscated their vehicles, largely on the grounds that the gallery lacked the proper permits for dancing and drinking. (More than forty cars were seized, and owners paid around a thousand dollars each to get them back.) “I was so scared,” Wong told me. At first, she thought the raid was an armed robbery. “Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Paul getting kicked in the face.” In the dimly lit security footage, the scene looks like something out of a thriller about Navy SEALs. Paul said, “I was scared for my life.”

you mentioned police seizure. This article makes one think that the entire eradication of certain towns' "law enforcement" would be an act of supreme justice.

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Later, she learned that cash-for-freedom deals had become a point of pride for Tenaha, and that versions of the tactic were used across the country. “Be safe and keep up the good work,” the city marshal wrote to Washington, following a raft of complaints from out-of-town drivers who claimed that they had been stopped in Tenaha and stripped of cash, valuables, and, in at least one case, an infant child, without clear evidence of contraband.

On July 15, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) sent 13 law-enforcement officers to execute a paramilitary raid on a no-kill animal shelter in Kenosha. The crime? The shelter was harboring a fawn that had been abandoned by its mother and named Giggles by shelter volunteers. The shelter intended to turn the animal over to a wildlife reserve the next day, but that was not good enough for the DNR. Wisconsin law forbids the possession of wildlife, so DNR sent the heavily armed team to capture and euthanize Giggles.

Eleven days later and less than 100 miles away, staff at a nursing home in the Chicago suburb of Park Forest called paramedics after 95-year-old World War II veteran John Wrana, suffering from a delusional episode, refused medical treatment. The paramedics in turn called the police, which further agitated Wrana, who threatened them with his cane and a knife. The police responded by shooting Wrana with stun guns and bean bags fired from a shotgun. Wrana died from internal bleeding shortly thereafter....continued

An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.

Why does it seem like those situations would have been settled better without the police?

We were so proud of how much freer we were than the commies, right? Remember that? Now we are vying with China for the most people in prison and the heaviest handed police. We are starting to look more and more like the Soviet Union, just without the national health care. Or maybe South Africa under martial law, when armored tanks rolled through the black townships every night. Or maybe more like over-militarized Israel. Again without the health care.....

Except all those countries had the excuse of being under siege internally from violent terrorists, and/or were afraid of being invaded by a neighboring country's army. We in the US haven't been invaded by armed troops from Canada or Mexico in, what, forever?

Local police with military weaponry? Torturing and killing unarmed or mentally ill people? For what purpose? We have the most powerful military in the world, we have not experienced warfare on our soil in over 100 years, violent crime rates have been falling since the 1990's and yet, we are so afraid of everything that we are willing to submit to police forces acting like hooligans.

And having a huge personal armory does not seem to make much difference, except we also shoot each other more.

Logged

When all of Cinderella's finery changed back at midnight, why didn't the shoes disappear? What's up with that?

New Hampshire state representative J.R. Hoell has introduced state legislation that will require police departments to get approval from citizens at a town hall meeting before they buy military-style gear. The bill, called the Police Equipment and Community Engagement (PEACE) Act, was prompted by the city of Concord buying its police department an armored assault vehicle, a decision justified in part by the police department's stated need to fight protest groups such as Occupy.

When Christopher Roupe answered the door last Friday, he probably didn’t think death would be waiting on the other side. But that’s exactly what the 17-year-old ROTC student found after the police officer outside mistook his Wii controller for a gun, a lawyer for his family says.

Roupe was killed Friday night after an officer arrived at his mobile home in Georgia to deliver a probation violation warrant for the teen’s father. As the officer tells it, Roupe was holding a gun when he answered the door. But Cole Law, who is representing Roupe’s family, disagrees.

“We don’t know where [the claim that he had a gun] came from,” Law told WSBTV in Atlanta. “The eyewitnesses on the scene clearly state that he had a Wii controller in his hand. He heard a knock at the door. He asked who it was, there was no response so he opened the door and upon opening the door he was immediately shot in the chest.”

cops in Austin, Texas arrest a woman out jogging for not providing ID.

Gun owners, is this the government tyranny you think your guns are supposed to protect us from? If so, then where the fck are you guys? If not, then what the fck is tyranny?

Waiting on public outrage. Waiting on an organizer. Waiting on a fearless leader to assemble the masses.

Waiting on someone like screwtape to deliver us from this evil and take us to the promised land!

It's completely disgusting what the cops can get away with, isn't it? I hope there's some follow-up to this story to verify the charges brought against this person, and to see if those charges stick, and how lengthy her prison sentence is. She is obviously a grave threat to public safety.

An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.

cops in Austin, Texas arrest a woman out jogging for not providing ID.

Gun owners, is this the government tyranny you think your guns are supposed to protect us from? If so, then where the fck are you guys? If not, then what the fck is tyranny?

You don't want to know, you just want to tell me I am wrong.

You're wrong (ha). I do want to know what gun owners are thinking when they say things like that. I've had this conversation with Dante before, so he has an excellent excuse if he wishes to abstain.

But I am also trying to make the point to them that these things they say are bullshit. They don't mean it. It is just a justification for doing what they want to do. I've read the comments of dozens of op-eds and news items regarding guns. All the guns guys are all "I'm ready for the revolution!" and "better stock up on bullets for when the Obamunists come for you!" blah blah blabbity blah. Aint no one ending any tyranny as I can see.

NSA collecting every conceivable piece of information? Check.Free Speech zones? Check.Whistleblowers called traitors? Check.Crackdown on protest? Check.Every major city has its own SWAT army? Check.Wall Street wrecks the economy and no one prosecuted? Check.People arrested and dragged off the streets to jail for not having ID? Check.etc.

So. Either gun advocates who use that argument do not think this is tyranny OR they are full of shit. I am just trying to figure out which. I am pretty sure it is the latter. But I'm asking. If I recall correctly, Dante considered it time to go shoot himself some politicians (and ostensibly cops) when elections were officially cancelled and "they" were coming for his guns. It's always when they come for the guns. It is never when they come for the press or the artists or the whistleblowers. Anyway, I think that is rather a high bar and never going to happen. You can have a tyranny without taking the guns and cancelling elections.

See, I do think we are living under tyranny. But it is a soft tyranny. It is not a kick-in-your-door kind (unless it is, like many of the links in this thread). It is more of a we-can-do-whatever-we-want kind, justified by security. I think something needs to be done. I would prefer it be on a political level. In fact, I think it has to be. But I hear all sorts of noise from the gun people about being armed to prevent this sort of thing.

Anyway, all that is more for my gun fail thread. This one is about our militarized police.

So. Either gun advocates who use that argument do not think this is tyranny OR they are full of shit. I am just trying to figure out which. I am pretty sure it is the latter. But I'm asking. If I recall correctly, Dante considered it time to go shoot himself some politicians (and ostensibly cops) when elections were officially cancelled

Seems reasonable, no?

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and "they" were coming for his guns. It's always when they come for the guns.

I dont recall stating that. I could be wrong, or I may have been ambiguous, or you misinterpreted, or....

But you're right. It's more for

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my gun fail thread. This one is about our militarized police.

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Anyway, I think that is rather a high bar and never going to happen. You can have a tyranny without taking the guns and cancelling elections.

See, I do think we are living under tyranny. But it is a soft tyranny. It is not a kick-in-your-door kind (unless it is, like many of the links in this thread). It is more of a we-can-do-whatever-we-want kind, justified by security. I think something needs to be done. I would prefer it be on a political level. In fact, I think it has to be.

Yeah, the abuses of the justice system are atrocious on so many levels. They really are. But how does one convince the masses that there is something wrong? So many people are brainwashed into the groupthink that our police/justice system are above reproach, and can do no wrong. And, if a wrong is uncovered and brought to light, it's dismissed as a one-time incident, blamed on an individual or small group of individuals, and the larger systemic problem is never addressed. It does, however, seem to be garnering a bit more press as of late, so that's a good thing.

Methinks we need a better marketing campaign. Of course, the same hold true in the battle against religion, too.

What's the alternative solution, screwtape? Do we make it a federal offense for local cops, with piss poor training and even poorer judgement, to abuse their locally-granted power? Wait, that's not half bad......